The Skeleton in my Closet: a Grian VS NPC Grian Fanfiction

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"But what about them? Why are you doing this? They never hurt you! Neither of them have ever even seen you before! Why are you taking this out on them?" He asks, tears welling up in his eyes. I stared at them as they fall, and felt nothing but rage.

I walk up to him, bending down on one knee, my face mere inches from his, and, choking down tears of my own, whisper, "I'm just repaying the favor."

Grian looks up, tears rushing down his cheeks. "I never did anything like this to you. I never hurt anyone you loved." He responds shakily, speaking through gritted teeth.

I shot up, towering over him. Rage pulsed through me like blood through veins. "Never hurt anyone I loved? NEVER HURT ANYONE I LOVED!?" Burning tears cascaded down my face, seething hatred tore at my chest, threatening to burst within me. I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him up so his eyes met mine.

"I had to watch! I had to stand there and watch, as you took him apart! Piece! By! Piece! My only brother, dismembered before my very eyes, because he was just another failed experiment to you! Because you didn't care whether he lived or died! All you cared about was you! You could talk again, you could play Build Battle, so he was just another piece of garbage laying around! You took him apart!" At this point my voice broke, and I slumped to the ground in tears. I grasped handfuls of my hair as hot tears spilled down my face. "My only brother...."

"You.... You mean Robot Grian?"

I looked up. Grian sat a couple paces away, staring blankly into the neverending white void of the infinity room. "He's not dead. I never killed him. He fried his central circuit board that day, when he tried escaping. You remember what happened, right?"

I felt skeptical at first, but remembering back, I saw something I had forgotten.

It was very long ago, nearly five years. It was one of those cold, windy nights I hated. My closet, my prison, it was so drafty, I could barely keep myself from shivering.

There was a crash, and Robot Grian had dashed out of the basement. He'd run straight for my closet. He tried to free me, but he couldn't figure out how to undo the lock. Grian had caught up, and tried to grab him, and missed, as he dodged for the door. He turned back to look at me, and in his artificial, mechanical voice, whispered, "I apologize," and dashed out the door.... into.... the rain....

Then there was a crack of thunder.

Pulled back into reality, I glanced up. Grian was looking right at me, so I turned my head. "He was struck by that lightning, wasn't he?"

"I've been trying to repair him, nearly every circuit was fried. I've been able to fix everything, everything except his motherboard. It was completely destroyed-"

"And you only ever got to make two, in a spur of the moment flurry of ideas, and the blueprints were destroyed, by me." I cut in.

I looked up. He was looking at his hands. I could see the sorrow in his eyes. The guilt. I understood now. He'd felt horrible, for five years he'd carried it with him, constantly it was on his mind, he never forgot. He cared. He'd cared this whole time.

I had to make this right, no matter what it took.